Whether you're a casual Internet user, or an always-on, hardcore Web junkie, this concerns you. It's time to have a talk about "network neutrality." It's been a subject of a lively debate in the blogosphere, and it's percolating into the news media. Network neutrality is the idea that internet service providers (ISPs, the telephone and cable companies that deliver the internet to you fresh daily) should keep all content—from tiny personal blogs to giant corporate sites—equally accessible: I.E., the way it is now.

Enter Congress, which is currently considering legislation—the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement (COPE) Act of 2006—that may change the Internet from the wide-open, egalitarian universe of free-flowing information that it is now, to a place where the guy with the biggest bucks has the loudest voice. If passed, it would allow phone and cable companies to charge content providers (websites) for the privilege of driving along the ISPs stretch of the info super highway (usually the last mile right before content ends up on your screen). If content companies can't pay the fees, they end up in the slow lane -- and you get to wait and wait and wait. Or maybe you won't get to use those sites at all.

Telecommunications companies argue that content providers are getting a free ride on their networks, and that someone has to pay to build and maintain the network infrastructure. But someone already is: you and me. I don't mind paying by bandwidth for what I use. I never want to pay for what I can't use. And that's a distinct possibility if network neutrality goes down the drain. —James Ross